Trump Putin O’Reilly Krauthammer

“Not that it was a moral equivalence between the United States and Russia about actions, but that we don’t have a right to form a judgment,” O’Reilly said. “It’s the same philosophy that Franklin Roosevelt used when he dealt with Stalin. What Trump wants to do is enlist Putin’s help to defeat ISIS and to get away from Iran, to weaken Iran.”

Krauthammer then jumped on O’Reilly, arguing he provided two different answers.

“One was a moral answer, we don’t have the right, presumably because of our own sins, to criticize him,” Krauthammer said. “The other answer was a pragmatic one.”

“But that’s his motivation,” O’Reilly countered. “That’s why he doesn’t say what I just said, that Putin’s a killer, because he wants Putin’s help to beat ISIS and Iran.”

Well. Trump’s was a too candid deal-maker’s response to the professionally impertinent O’Reilly, a con man in his own right whose smile is worth a thousand winks.

The deal-maker intends to deal with Putin in his role as leader of a world power, with heavy stakes having to do with national security.

The interrogator, on the other hand, is a carny, going for headline and clicks, knowing his man would neither concede nor call him on his impertinence.

“You’re kidding,” he would not say, declining to haggle with the showman, even if he’s a showman himself — with a twist. He’s also chosen leader of a great nation, preparing to deal with a lesser, but otherwise objectionable, national leader in a fight with Islamic fascism.

Another FDR come to judgment? Dealing not with the world champion mass-murderer Stalin but with his latest successor. “Uncle Joe,” FDR called him. We are at war again, and the enemy of our enemy is provisionally our friend. That or another enemy.